Thoughts and Adventures

parislemon:

It certainly looks true that the iPhone is a “nightmare” for the carriers, as David Goldman of CNN Money suggests. But context is important. It’s a nightmare for their margins — it’s a dream from a product offering perspective.

A few other things here:

1) Boo-fucking-hoo. The carriers have raked consumers over the coals for years with things like SMS charges, which have a near-infinite margin.

2) This shows the position of power Apple has now. This is a direct result of going exclusive first with AT&T to ensure they got the deal they wanted. Once the iPhone took off and AT&T started stealing customers, it forced the other carriers to bend to the same deals. 

3) This shows why the carriers need Android and are willing to spend a lot to promote it. All the OEMs besides Samsung are basically getting dicked over when it comes to making money off of Android devices, but the same is not true of the carriers. They love it.

4) Sadly, this will still end with the consumers getting screwed. To be able to pay the Apple subsidy and maintain their huge margins, carriers are going to continue to raise rates and/or put in ridiculous restrictions like this. 

parislemon:

Earlier, I linked to this set of three pie charts by Ed Bott, but it’s worth mentioning something else about them. The subtle point that it seems Bott is trying to make is that out of Microsoft, Apple, and Google, Microsoft has the best business because it’s the most well-rounded. (Meanwhile,…

parislemon:

Danny Sullivan notes the difference between the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. Both are actually running on the same network, but the Galaxy gets the all-important “4G” moniker. 

Except that it’s bullshit.

As Sullivan points out, the iPhone and the Galaxy are getting the exact same speeds. That’s because AT&T’s network is actually HSPA+, which the iPhone supports but refuses to call “4G” even though AT&T does. 

Why does AT&T call it 4G? Because they were one to two years behind their competitors in rolling out an actual 4G network. In other words, when all hope fades, lie. 

In AT&T’s parlance, real 4G is “4G LTE”. What a fucking joke.

parislemon:

Amit Runchal has a slightly different take on Andy Rubin’s revelation from two days ago that Google is now activating 700,000 Android devices a day. Says Runchal:

But as far as I can tell, the 700,000 number isn’t good for Android. It’s bad. It means that Android activation growth has slowed dramatically, by almost a factor of three.

Bonus points for calling out the ridiculous AllThingsD post in which Ina Fried suggests Google could be activating Android devices at a run rate of 900 million by the end of next year. As Runchal highlights, that’s significantly more than the total number of all smartphones that are expected to be sold all of next year.

So I guess Google will be responsible for every single smartphone sold — and another 300 million or so Android tablets by the end of next year. Meanwhile, in this scenario, Apple will sell zero iPhones. 

Sounds good. Sound math.